


Gymnophoria: Take One

by Culumacilinte



Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-22
Updated: 2014-06-22
Packaged: 2018-02-05 16:35:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1825120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Culumacilinte/pseuds/Culumacilinte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She knows intimately the sensation of a pair of eyes trained on her; the awful, crawling knowledge that someone is staring at her, imagining her naked, imagining doing more than just looking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gymnophoria: Take One

**Author's Note:**

> From the prompt: Six/Peri Gymnophoria - The sensation that someone is mentally undressing you. Warnings for discussion of sexual harassment, and references to the implied sexual abuse of a minor.

Peri’s breasts grew in at the age of eleven.  
  
Men have been staring at her ever since.  
  
She knows intimately the sensation of a pair of eyes trained on her; the awful, crawling knowledge that someone is staring at her, imagining her naked, imagining doing more than just  _looking_. Gazes like sneaking, invasive hands plucking at hemlines, lingering on her tits. When she was a kid, it frightened her, made her want to curl up somewhere alone until they stopped looking. When she got older, she learned how to shout, and took to wearing bright colours, leotards and shorts and low-cut tops; she knew well enough that they were going to stare anyway, and like hell was she going to cover herself up, try and make herself meek and unobtrusive for their sakes. Fuck the lot of them if they thought they could make her ashamed of her own body. So she dressed like a dare for people to stare, because if nothing else, she’d like how she looked in the mirror.  
  
But still. It’s hard to unlearn instinct, and sometimes she can’t bring herself to shout. Sometimes, when they’re stalking around her, or leering from across the room, or standing so close she can feel their breath on the back of her neck, all she can do is freeze. Freeze, and flinch, and stare at the floor with her pulse pounding under every inch of skin.  
  
She  _hates_  it. She hates how small it makes her feel. An animal, a thing, a cold, helpless, shaking creature, not Peri at all.  
  
It makes her think of Howard. Makes her feel like a child again, in too deep, able neither to understand nor to fight, and she  _hates_  it.  
  
She hates  _them_  for being able to do that to her.  
  
Another planet, another adventure, another problem sorted. The Doctor beams, pleased with himself and the happy ending he’s engineered, but Peri’s still trembling faintly, the barest jitter of uncontrollable motion, like she’s had too much caffeine, from having been held captive and threatened with marriage– yet again. He bundles them both into the TARDIS, giving her a little clap on the shoulder as he bustles over to the console– and quite suddenly, Peri bursts into tears. She’s frightened, and angry, and too full of trembling adrenaline to do anything else.  
  
It’s mortifying.  
  
The Doctor looks up in shock, brow creasing in concern. ‘Peri! Are you hurt?’  
  
‘No!’ she manages through hiccoughing sobs. ‘I’m fine. I mean, I’m not fine, I just–’  
  
She’s beyond words. She can feel herself shaking, her muscles too tense, and she jerks herself around to slam her fists against the wall as hard as she can, and screams. Not a scream of terror, but a sound half-stifled even as it’s born, ragged and raw with frustration and fury, and it leaves her there, half-slumped with her forearms pressed into the edge of a roundel, gulping to try and catch her breath.  
  
‘Peri…’ The Doctor’s voice is soft this time, his footsteps and the swish of his coattails the only sound as he comes around the console towards her.  
  
‘I  _hate_  them,’ she grates, forcing the words thickly through her tear-clogged throat. ‘All of them.’ Pushing herself away from the wall, she looks once up at the Doctor through her fringe but can’t bear to hold his gaze for more than a moment. ‘Every stupid planet we land on, there’s some guy–  _perving_  at me like he wants to–’ another sob gets in the way of her words, and she takes a shuddering breath, scrubbing her hand across her face. ‘Threatening to make me his wife, or his concubine, or his–  _whore_!’  
  
The Doctor’s expression contorts like he wants to say something, but now she’s started, Peri can’t quite seem to stop.  
  
‘And I can’t– you go– striding around getting threatened left and right, and it never bothers you, but I just– it’s just _that_. I can deal fine with… danger and peril and all that. I could shout at the Master just fine,’ she laughs a little hysterically at the memory, ‘but they start  _looking_  at me like that, and I just, it makes me feel–’ She shudders, hugging herself briefly, fingernails digging into her biceps as a fresh wave of tears momentarily blinds her. ‘It’s not _fair_! I got enough of that on Earth, and here I am– travelling the stars, and they can still do that to me. I hate it, Doctor. I really, really hate it.’  
  
And then she’s left standing there, the tears still coming, face screwed up and half hidden behind her hair, one hand clutching hard at her own arm. No more words seem to be forthcoming. The Doctor lets out a breath that sounds like it’s been held for some time. When Peri looks up at him, he’s wearing an expression she hasn’t quite seen before; it’s in part familiar, the look he always gets when confronted with people hurting, wrongs that need writing, but it’s much more– lost than she’s ever seen, uncomfortably uncertain.  
  
‘Oh,  _Peri_. My dear, dear girl.’ He takes a step forward, hands lifted, and then pauses. ‘Is a hug acceptable, under the circumstances?’  
  
Peri chokes on something that’s half a laugh, and half a sob, and sniffles wetly. ‘Yeah.’  
  
The Doctor is broad and strong and soft in this body, and his arms are firm as they draw her into an embrace, one hand sliding into her hair, easing her head to lie against his chest. He tucks his chin down against the crown of her head, his other arm curled around her shoulders as Peri cries herself dry, murmuring little nonsense words of solace. Peri is more than happy to hang onto him. Somehow, the Doctor’s offered comfort doesn’t feel like a concession to weakness, and Peri is grateful for it.  
  
Eventually, she’s left with nothing more than deep, dry, shaking breaths, and a hollow feeling in her gut, the creeping exhaustion that follows that kind of breakdown. The shoulder of the Doctor’s jacket is soaked with her tears, and smeared with her mascara, and she pulls back to take a little swipe at it.  
  
‘Sorry.’  
  
‘Nonsense, Perpugilliam,’ the Doctor says briskly, peering down at her. ‘If my coat can withstand alien slime and staser fire and the mud of a thousand worlds, I daresay it’ll survive a few of your tears.’  
  
‘I guess.’ She attempts a watery smile. The moment’s passing, but she doesn’t really feel like breaking the contact, so she leans in again, arms around his ribcage giving him a little squeeze, cheek pressed to the lapel that’s still dry. The Doctor stiffens, as if he hadn’t been expecting that, but then relaxes with a great gust of breath, hitching his arms around her anew.  
  
After a few moments, he ventures, ‘I’ll… keep an eye out for that sort of thing, in future. And if you ever need someone to do your shouting for you, well. I am told my talents in that particular arena are prodigious.’  
  
One final hiccough of tears muffles itself against the Doctor’s coat, and though it’s a little wobbly, Peri’s smile up at him is quite genuine. ‘Thanks, Doctor.’  
  
‘For you, my dear, I could hardly do less.’


End file.
